Grumpy AuContraire wrote:


CWO4 Dave Mann wrote:



snip




I'll tell you about the Rolleiflex and the Leica bombs -- the chopper
banked like really sharply, I didn't have the gunner's harness
attached, the choice was let the cameras go or let me go.

Cameras went, 500 feet into the DMZ

Cheers,

Dave




You had a lousy pilot...

When I worked on Kwajalein, (ABM R&D), I rode in a Huey tracking chopper
nearly half the missions from Oct 1971 through 1975. Usually, I was in
the "missile" port side of the chopper but on one occasion, I elected to
be on the starboard side so that I could get a "creative" shot of the
three other tracking technicians during the launch of a Spartan
interceptor.

We did several practice runs prior to the actual shot. During each, the
chopper would bank deeply in order to keep the target in sight. During
the process, the air passing from one side to the other approached
hurricane force not to mention the "g's" pulled in recovery. Only one
of our pilots flew these types of missions as none of the others would
go through with such radical maneuvers.

When the "shot" finally came, and we repeated the flight sequence and I
got my footage etc and after we recovered, I looked down and noticed
that my seat belt was never fastened...

Had I had your pilot, the Arri S and I would have gone into the drink
from about 3,500 ft.

Now, I could tell you about another of our pilots that EVERYONE dread to
fly with.....

G

JT




Yikes JT! Just when I thought it was safe to come in from the
surveillance van parked behing Temp C Building! And speaking of an
Arriflex, did I mention that the 116th managed to acquire an Arriflex
16S with three lenses (including a huge telephoto) and made loads of
movies. Unfortunately, when I came back to the 116th in early 1972,
they had had to get rid of the camera and ALL of those movies -- the old
spying on civilians rule. I'll bet John Kerry was in a lot of those
videos but we'll never know.

Cheers,

Dave